


Superpowered Anomaly Team (Hyper Force Go)

by Annariel



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bechdel Test Pass, F/F, F/M, POV Female Character, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen is a physicist, Jess is her assistant and the Earth has made contact with aliens who travel, in part, using anomalies.  An accident in Helen's anomaly research lab leaves her team with super-powers.  The authorities react by imprisoning them... in a space prison.  Villainous schemes and daring escapes ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Origin Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_scabbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_scabbard/gifts).



> This is my Secret Santa offering for the_scabbard. I've gone with the Villainous Scheming prompt she offered, but also slipped in some diictodons and was inspired by her request for a Prison AU though, I strongly suspect, this is not the Prison AU she was looking for (unless she secretly wanted a Superpowered Space Prison AU in which case this is exactly the Prison AU she was looking for).
> 
> Thanks to fredbassett for beta-reading this - some of it twice.

Jess Parker, computational physicist, watched the simulation on her screen. A temporal anomaly gradually built itself out of nothing, reaching a stable configuration after five seconds of simulation time.

"That looks hopeful." Abby Maitland was the temporal physics lab tech. She was sitting on a lab stool next to Jess's station peering over her shoulder.

Jess shrugged. "The last few simulations have all looked good."

"Only one way to find out then," Abby replied and they both turned look across at where Professor Helen Cutter paced around in the middle of the room.

The temporal physics lab was a large, rapidly refurbished space on the CMU campus. It was an old storage building just outside the physics department itself. Construction of a brand new Temporal Physics Institute was underway across the campus. Jess walked past the bulldozers and scaffolding every morning on her way in, but it was at least six months away from completion and in the meantime Helen was queen of their little building, filling it with equipment bought with a rapidly assembled and enthusiastically funded grant.

It all made a bit of a change from when they'd been an entirely theoretical, and distinctly unappreciated, office tucked under a stairwell in the main physics building.

Helen stopped pacing and stood facing the centre of the room. Jess knew she was looking at the spot where she hoped an anomaly would soon appear.

"Jess!" she commanded.

Jess initiated the opening sequence, her hands running automatically over the keyboard. She watched the screens for power input carefully. As the power built, a faint glow began to appear in the air in front of Helen. Then the beam lost alignment and it flickered out.

Abby sighed and Helen swore.

Jess rubbed her eyes. They'd worked on this until past midnight the previous night and since 8am that day. If she hadn't fallen asleep at the keyboard, Helen would probably have carried on all night. She pulled up the data trying to work out what had gone wrong this time.

"I'll double-check the beam," Abby said, hopping off her stool and moving into the room proper.

"Tea break!" Claudia Lewis marched into the lab unannounced and smiled brightly at Jess, her pale pink heels clicking on the hard floor.

Helen scowled at her. "We're busy. Her high and mightiness the Vice-Chancellor will be here in less than an hour."

"The chances of you pulling a rabbit out of the hat in the next hour are minimal," Claudia snapped back. "However if Jess looks more like a brain-dead zombie than a professional scientist when Ms. Johnson asks questions it will be a lot worse than not having a breakthrough in temporal physics to show for your efforts. I'm going to take her to have a coffee. I suggest you take a break yourself."

Helen glanced at her watch and then over at Jess. Jess tried to smile brightly for her. "I'm fine, really," she said.

Abby snorted. "You were both here when I left last night, and when I arrived this morning."

Helen glared at her but Abby just shrugged. She was employed by the Physics Department, not Helen, and wasn't afraid to contradict the woman.

Helen walked over and gave Jess a squeeze, though Jess noticed she was giving Claudia a pointed look as she did so. "It's OK, love, Claudia may have a point. Take a 15 minute break. When you come back we can look at this with fresh eyes." She dropped a gentle kiss on Jess's forehead.

Jess gratefully slipped off her computer chair and followed Claudia out of the room, Abby at her side. She glanced back to see Helen pouring over the data on the computer monitor. Her face held a look of intense concentration.

"I'm fine really," Jess repeated to the other women as they walked towards the small kitchen.

"Helen works you too hard," Claudia said shortly, and her hips swayed dangerously in her pencil skirt. 

"I want this to work too," Jess argued, because the anomaly project was as much her research as Helen's.

Claudia sniffed and her mouth closed in a thin line of disapproval. Jess let it pass. Claudia was not the only member of the department concerned about her relationship with Helen, but then Claudia was currently seeing Helen's ex-husband and that definitely added an extra layer to her opinions.

"No one doubts that," Abby broke in gently. "But you're driving yourself too hard and that is partly because Helen, as your boss, isn't making you take enough rest."

"Aren't you worried about the VC's visit?" Jess questioned Claudia as they sat down in IKEA armchairs that had been squeezed into the kitchen alongside a kettle, fridge, microwave and a ridiculous beast of a coffee machine.

"Not really," Claudia said. "You two have a multi-million pound grant to study that stuff. She's hardly going to complain that you haven't found an answer in the first six months. What I _need_ is your lab looking like a professionally run project, which is going to pay real dividends to the university in the medium term - not like a place two grad students with a deadline have been living in for the past week."

Claudia pushed a cup of foaming coffee from the expensive machine into Jess's hands. 

"Look, Jess, every university and research lab on the planet is looking into this stuff, but you and Helen were furthest along before the Yelani showed up, that means there is every chance you will start finding answers soonest. All you need to do is give the impression of a competent and steady hand at the helm."

That was the bottom line really. 

The alien Yelani had appeared little more than a year ago. Initially they arrived in glittering wormholes that had appeared in the offices of key heads of state the world over, but later on large ships had turned up in orbit, hanging ominously in the sky. For the time being, the Yelani were only interested in trade, or so they claimed, taking copies of books, artwork, and flora and fauna away with them in exchange for various technological marvels, but students of history were already drawing parallels with empires throughout Earth's history. No one was really expecting peaceful trading relations to remain that way for long and the race was on to catch up with the Yelani's clear technological superiority. Although they had shared a lot of things, the secrets to the wormholes were not among them - hence the research grant, the research institute and Helen's rapid promotion from departmental joke to power professor. Impressing Christine Johnson, CMU Vice-Chancellor was really a secondary concern to catching up with any threat the Yelani might some day pose. That said, impressing the VC was probably important if Helen was to remain in charge. 

Jess grinned at Claudia over the top of the coffee. "You want me to go back and tell Helen to chill, otherwise it'll look bad."

"Well it would help, because she's certainly not going to take any advice from me, I'm just the HoDs PA, as far as she's concerned."

"Departmental Administrator," Abby corrected.

Claudia snorted in a surprisingly unladylike fashion. "Yeah, tell Helen that."

* * *

Jess stopped by the toilets on the way back and checked her hair and make-up. She did look a bit like she hadn't slept in a week, with dark shadows bagging under her eyes. She put on a bit of glittery eye-shadow and then worried that it wasn't serious and scientific enough. Then she shrugged. It made her feel better which, if Claudia was correct, was the main thing.

She headed back out down the corridor towards the lab. Through the corridor windows she could see one of the Yelani space cruisers hanging over the CMU sports fields. Jess shuddered quietly to herself. The ships were a common enough sight now, but they always frightened her a little.

Helen was still pouring over the data stream as Jess pushed open the door of the lab. She leaned in for a kiss, and glanced over Helen's shoulder at the numbers. Abby had already assumed her normal watching position on the lab stool, waiting until she was needed to set up, move or disassemble some of the equipment.

"So, what did Claudia want you to tell me?" Helen asked.

Jess laughed. "There's really no hiding anything from you."

"An amateur like Miss Lewis certainly can't manage it. Go on, tell me!"

"She says it's more important that we look calm and competent than that we have something to show."

Helen leaned back in the computer chair, resting her head against Jess's shoulder. "But we're so close."

Jess dropped a kiss on Helen's forehead and took a second look at the data. Then she pointed at some rogue figures. "It looks like we went out of alignment at the phase transition. I'll tweak some of the smoothing code, see if I can make it less of a jump."

Helen nodded and yielded the chair to her. "You know Nick's managed to get a grant to study temporal rifts as well."

Jess smiled quietly to herself. That explained a lot about Helen's urgency. Helen and Nick Cutter had been competitive even when they were married. The divorce had not even remotely taken the edge off. "It's not his field," Jess pointed out. "It'll take him a while to catch up on the theory."

"It's close enough," Helen muttered darkly.

Jess frowned at her C code and tweaked a couple of constants. "There, let's give it another run."

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Christine Johnson walked in, flanked by the Head of Department and the Head of Faculty. Claudia was trailing behind the group. Jess watched Claudia take in the lab in a quick glance, then she smiled at Jess and gave a discreet nod of approval.

There was a lot of talking. The Head of Department introduced his show scientist. Helen simpered a little and explained the theory of what they were doing, how the Yelani arrival through an anomaly demonstrated very publicly not only their existence, but the feasibility of creating and controlling them as a method of travel. Jess was impressed that Ms. Johnson asked a number of very pointed questions, and she linked the science in with the current political turmoil as the world struggled to get to grips with inter-galactic politics and the possibilities of time travel.

Abby quietly checked over the apparatus while the talking continued and then came over to stand by Jess. She gave a little thumbs up of encouragement. Jess hoped they wouldn't actually have to show everything not working, but the email exchanges leading up to the visit had been inconclusive on the subject of a demo.

"Can you show us all this in action?" the Head of Department asked.

"I believe the team is still fine-tuning the set-up," Claudia cut in smoothly, her arms already out-stretched to usher the delegation from the room.

"I'd still like to see some sort of demonstration," Ms. Johnson said. Her voice was a quiet murmur, but there was no mistaking the command in her tone.

Helen smiled tightly. "Of course!"

Helen gestured at Jess to begin. Jess already had the program lined up ready to go, so she pressed return. They all watched as the energy began to build, a bright light forming in the space between the beams. Then it fizzled and died. Helen shrugged, but Jess heaved a mental sigh of relief. At least _something_ had happened, it would have been horrible if nothing had been visible at all, and that had been a real possibility.

"We're almost there, but we need to do some more tuning," Helen said.

"Still, very impressive," said Ms. Johnson and she sounded as though she meant it.

"We do need to move on," said Claudia smoothly and the delegation was ushered out of the room.

"We were really close then," Jess said. "We just ran out of power."

Helen nodded tersely. "Let's set it up one more time, then we'll call it a day."

While Helen and Abby checked over the machinery, Jess double-checked the routines, and tweaked a few more parameters. Claudia walked back into the room.

"That went really well, everyone was very pleased. I know it's not what you wanted Helen..." she tailed off aware that Helen was paying her no attention.

"Thanks, Claudia." Jess grinned at her.

At that moment Claudia's phone rang. "What? Her handbag?" Claudia glanced around. 

Jess immediately noticed a large, unknown handbag propped against a chair by the door. She pointed to it.

"Guchi? Black? Big gold clasp? Yes, that's it, it's in the anomaly lab. I'll bring it out. Oh?"

Claudia shut down the phone. "Apparently Ms. Johnson is on her way back to collect it."

"Maybe she'll be just in time to see us open an anomaly," said Helen. "OK, you two, one last time."

She stepped back from the apparatus. Jess ran through the start up sequence. Claudia hovered by the door, holding Ms. Johnson's handbag.

Slowly an anomaly began to form in the centre of the room. They all watched as it grew. Jess kept half an eye on the computer readouts. "I think it's stabilising," she said in surprised delight. 

Helen hurried over and stood beside her. "Keep feeding it power slowly, let's see if we can sustain it."

The anomaly flickered for a moment and a woman walked through it. Jess gasped. The woman was wearing patched together weather-beaten clothing, what looked like a jacket over the remains of a long dress. She had long brown curls, caught up in a hurried braid that fell over one shoulder. She looked about her with an air of calm assessment.

Jess tore her eyes back to the readouts and saw that the power consumption was suddenly building. 

"The power!" she gasped, frantically trying to adjust the input. 

There was a sudden flash of light and then everything went black.


	2. Villainous Schemes

"Lester says that if the appeal hearing goes well, then we could have you all back on Earth within six months." Nick's image on the screen stuttered and froze, but his voice carried on clearly over the speakers.

Claudia Brown badly wanted to reach out and fiddle with the computer's settings, but her arms were shackled to the chair. As usual the level of precaution depressed and irritated her all at once. 

"I'm glad you and Lester are managing to work together." She worked to make her voice sound reassuring.

"Aye, well, he's all right, I suppose," Nick said grudgingly. "I still think he's mostly doing it because Christine is making him."

Claudia reserved judgement. It wasn't as if they had a lot of access to gossip up here in orbit. But her impression was that the Lester-Johnson marriage was not all sunshine and roses at the moment. 

"What happens next if the appeal doesn't go well?" she asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Claudia suppressed her irritation. "Does that mean you don't have any plans, or that it's bad news and you don't want us to worry."

Nick looked mildly embarrassed. "A bit of both, to be honest. Let's focus on the appeal. We've got a very good case. There isn't a law on Earth that justifies your detention."

Claudia couldn't help a slight snort at that. She was sure there were plenty of countries with laws that absolutely allowed the random detention of individuals that made the state nervous. But Nick was correct that they had been accused of no crime, and had received no trial. They were just in a holding pattern while the major powers decided what they wanted to do. They all suspected that the Yelani had some involvement as well - after all their highly advanced orbital prison, nicknamed the Space Wheel, had appeared at remarkably short notice. Nick was worried, in fact they were all worried, that they would just be left here and forgotten so they worked to keep their situation in the limelight while, at the same time, trying to appear as safe and innocuous at possible.

"Time's up," said a voice.

Claudia twisted in her chair to see Captain Becker, the head guard, walking into the room. She nodded and looked back to Nick.

"I'm afraid that's it for today."

Nick nodded. "I thought it might be. I'll speak to you again next week." There was a slight hesitation and then he said, "Give my love to Jenny."

Claudia nodded tightly. "I will. Goodbye Nick."

She didn't say `I love you' because it always so clearly discomforted him. Or at least it had since the accident with Helen's anomaly creation device. All the women in the lab had been knocked out by the explosion. When she had woken up it was to see a second woman with her own face staring back at her. That had been Jennifer Lewis and no one had ever managed to explain how the two of them shared the same set of memories up until the explosion and yet were clearly distinct people and different personalities. No one had been able to explain either why each of the women in the room had woken up in the possession of something that could only be described as a super-power - which wasn't to say that a lot of people hadn't subsequently ended up injured or dead attempting to replicate the effect. Claudia's personal new power was super-strength, something she was less than enthustiastic about, especially since it resulted in her being chained up on a regular basis.

Nick tried to treat both Claudia and Jenny equally but there was no escaping the fact that they both were and both weren't the girlfriend he'd had before the accident. At least he didn't endlessly call her Jenny, where poor Jenny had to put up with being called Claudia.

"Let's get you back to the prisoner section," Becker said.

He started to wheel her chair out of the room. Claudia suppressed her irritation once more. She was hardly likely to attack any of the guards, under the circumstances, least of all Becker who struck her as a pretty decent person. And yet, she was kept firmly manacled down whenever in their company, just in case.

"How are the plans for the appeal?" Becker asked.

"They seem to be going well. It's hard to tell from up here."

"Well, I'll look forward to being out of a job."

Tom Ryan was standing outside the door to the prisoner section. He risked a smile as Becker wheeled her up.

"How's the escape planning going?" he asked.

"Mired with lawyers as far as I can tell," Claudia shot back.

Ryan opened the door and Becker pushed her chair through.

"I've set the timer to release you in two minutes," he said. 

Claudia sat in the chair and listened to the door clang shut. A minute or so later she heard the machinery in the chair releasing the catches on the manacles and she was able to stand up and stretch.

* * *

Jess sighed and turned another page of her book. She'd already read it three times, but she'd read everything in the prison library three times and she had nothing better to do.

"Penny for them." Abby was cooing over two diictodons in a cage, but she had looked up on hearing Jess's sigh. They were the latest shipment of `displaced creatures (harmless)' up from Earth. Abby should have taken them both down to the menagerie and settled them in, but she had been keeping them in the common room and burbling to them quietly in a way that, presumably, she and the diictodons both understood, even though Jess didn't.

"I'm bored," Jess said.

Abby made a face. "Don't say that too loudly, or Becker will have you cleaning the outer hull or some such."

"I wish. They never let me anywhere near the outside. They're too worried I'll be able to interface with something." Jess tapped her head significantly and pouted at Abby.

Abby stood up and plucked the book out of Jess's hands, she glanced idly at the cover and handed it back. "You could ask Ms. Johnson to arrange for more books to be flown up here. She likes you."

Jess shuddered involuntarily. "Yeah, and no thanks!"

Abby looked concerned for a moment and chewed her lip, but then obviously decided she had nothing useful to say and turned back to the diictodons. "At least my weird super-power is considered useful up here. I wish they weren't all just afraid of you."

"They're afraid of all of us really," Jess pointed out. "Just some of us are more obviously scary than others."

The door slid open and Helen sashayed into the room and sat down next to Jess. "Time for another outing," she said.

Abby sighed and rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. "Leave me out of this one."

"You want to sit around here waiting until someone on Earth deigns to decide you aren't a criminal, just because you have some unusual powers!" Helen's voice was scathing.

"Not really, but I'm tired of your plans, which involve you not telling us shit and then getting rations reduced and privileges taken away. If you feel like sharing some specifics, I'll be in the gym."

Abby scowled at Helen and stalked out of the door.

Helen raised her eyebrows at Jess. 

"They're all strained," Jess tried to cover for them. "It's not been an easy couple of years."

Helen sat next to Jess on the sofa and gave her a hug. "Don't worry, it'll all be on the up from here, I'm almost done. We just need you close to a computer."

* * *

Abby shoved violently at the doors to the gym as she walked in and gained a certain satisfaction from hearing them bang against the wall. It wasn't really a gym, of course. It had been intended as some kind of second common room area, but gradually the chairs had been cleared out of the way to make a space for exercise.

"Problem?" Jenny Lewis asked. She was seated on a plastic chair with her back against the wall, filing down her nails. In the centre of the room Claudia and Emily were sparring.

Abby leaned back against the wall and huffed in annoyance. "Helen is starting up another one of her plans."

Abby knew it wasn't just Helen's secret plans and their inevitable fall out that irritated her, it was the way Helen toyed with Jess's affection. Abby had always been of the opinion that Helen had seduced Jess, largely as a bit on the side, then she had hung onto her partly to annoy Nick and partly because Jess was brilliant and, even before the Yelani's appearance, Helen could see that working with Jess was going to be good for her paper output. Now, of course, there was no one else around who had much time for Helen, and Jess remained useful, but Abby struggled to detect any real signs of affection in Helen's manner and it irked her. She considered Jess to be a friend.

Jenny grimaced. "We only just got our privileges back after Helen's last escapade. I'm almost out of lipstick."

Abby couldn't help smiling slightly, "I don't know what you want it for in here anyway."

"Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Besides, how much of your allowance do you spend on bleach?"

Abby ran a hand self-consciously through her hair. "It makes me feel more human again. Helps me believe they'll let us out of here eventually."

Jenny nodded and tucked her nail file into the pocket of her orange overalls. "Helps me believe I'm not her and she isn't me." Jenny nodded to Claudia.

The fight was being pretty one-sided. Claudia, as usual, was simply standing there while Emily jumped, span and whirled around her. She was blocking the blows but failing to retaliate.

"Emily still can't convince her to actually fight, I see." Abby observed.

"Claudia's afraid that if she actually hits Emily, Emily won't stand up again."

"It's a reasonable concern."

Abby watched as Emily lifted up into the air, spinning gracefully. She bounced off one wall and then came flying towards Claudia. Claudia stepped to one side, but nowhere near fast enough. Emily crashed into her and came to a sudden stop in a heap on the floor. Claudia didn't even rock backwards.

"Are you OK, Emily?" she asked.

Emily picked herself up. "Nothing broken."

Abby pushed herself away from the wall. "Spar against me for a bit, at least that way you'll have to dodge occasionally."

Emily tossed her hair back over her shoulders and nodded briefly. Claudia looked relieved and smiled at Abby.

Abby moved into the centre of the room and took up a defensive stance. It was a little pointless really. Whatever the anomaly accident had done to Emily, something that one of the tech people had referred to as extreme Wushi-iness, she was almost untouchable by anyone with normal reflexes. Only Claudia's solid super-strength presented any challenge to her, and Claudia, unhappy with her new powers, generally just stood there like a rock.

Emily came at her and Abby was able to block the first two blows, which almost certainly meant Emily was slowing down for her benefit. She tried a jab which Emily ducked. Then she saw Emily move for a roundhouse kick. Knowing that would slow her down further, Abby moved closer, inside Emily guard and jabbed again, landing a blow on Emily's shoulder. Then Emily's arm wrapped itself round hers. The world spun around and moments later she was on her knees on the floor, Emily holding her in a half nelson. Abby took a deep breath and then banged her free hand down. Emily let her up instantly.

Abby bounced back, her hands once more at the ready. "Again!" she said.

Emily gave her a look, but moved back and took up a matching stance. This time Abby went straight into the attack, working off her irritation at Helen but confident that she was unlikely to harm Emily. Moments later she was flat on her back on the floor.

"What's this about?" Emily asked, as she let her up.

"Helen!" Abby spat.

"What exactly is her plan?" Jenny asked.

Abby stopped. "She didn't say. Could you find out?"

Jenny shook her head. "Probably not. That suppressor field of theirs is on the blink again so I'm picking up some stuff, but really all I get is emotions and surface intent. I can tell if someone's lying, but not what the truth is." She shrugged.

"Probably a good thing," Claudia said.

Abby glanced between the two women. Superficially they were so similar, and similar to Claudia Lewis who they had replaced, but she'd found their personalities very different and their powers were almost opposite extremes. Claudia had vast strength, while Jenny could read and influence minds. She kept lamenting all the PR jobs she couldn't apply for while holed up waiting for the powers that be to decide what the fuck they were going to do with them all.

"Helen has a theory," Emily said.

"What about?" Abby asked.

"I'm not sure, but she times her activities very carefully."

"When Christine isn't here," Claudia said. "I'd noticed that."

Abby frowned. "Christine always claimed to be unaffected by the anomaly explosion. She wasn't in the room with us. I assumed she was too far from the blast."

"I've never believed her," Jenny said. "She can't have been far away. She was definitely in the building."

"Helen clearly doesn't believe her either," Claudia added.

"So what could Christine's power be, that means that Helen only acts when she's not around?" Abby mused.

"We could ask Jess," Emily said.

"Even if Helen had told her, which I doubt, I don't think she would betray Helen's trust and tell us."

The four women shared a moment of disapproval. They all agreed that Helen took advantage of Jess and they all felt the relationship was more one sided than Jess realised. However it wasn't any easy conversation to have with the girl. Helen was one of the few things she had left to cling onto in this new life of theirs.

"We're all thinking Christine provides the suppression field, aren't we?" Abby said at last.

"Which would mean the authorities know about Christine?" Claudia mused.

"It's possible. It might explain why she's done so well politically, though it presumably means she's stuck with the prison governor job." Abby frowned to herself.

"Time," said Jenny, "that we hatched a scheme of our own, I think."

* * *

Jess held her breath as Helen marched up the corridor. Helen's figure blurred as her shape shifted to that of Mac Rendall, one of the guards. 

Jess watched Helen approach the entrance to the prisoner section. Ryan was visible through the view-port on the other side.

"Now that is interesting," whispered a voice behind Jess.

Jess spun around to see Jenny standing right behind her.

"You startled me," she hissed.

"I know." Jenny's lips were a slash of red. 

Jess looked down the corridor. Helen was doing a good imitation of Mac's mannerisms, but Ryan wasn't looking convinced.

"Didn't Helen try this trick last time? Trying to convince the guard outside the door that another had got accidentally locked in here?" Jenny asked.

"Helen's very good at this," Jess responded defensively.

"Helen underestimates people. It's one of her big weaknesses."

Jess turned to argue further. Jenny was smiling slightly at her. The other woman raised her eyebrows and flicked a hand subtly.

Jess heard the sounds of the locks clattering.

"What did you do?" Jess asked.

"I just made Ryan lose any curiosity about what Mac Rendall was doing in here."

"I thought your powers were suppressed this close to the guard section?"

"I thought all our powers were. Interesting, isn't it?"

Jess risked a peek around the corner. Helen was standing by the door, her hands on her hips and a slight pout on her face. Jess hurried up the corridor to join her, aware of Jenny's soft footfalls behind. Helen raised an eyebrow.

"What brings you here?"

"Helping out," Jenny said. "If you're going to try smuggling in more machine parts and risking us losing privileges again, then I'd at least like to make sure you smuggle in some make-up. I imagine Jess would appreciate some chocolate, too."

Jess felt herself blush. 

"So superficial," Helen said scathingly.

Jess felt her blush deepen, because Helen was right. Nice as some chocolate would be she really had more important things to wish for.

"Sometimes the little things are important as well," Jenny returned, apparently unconcerned by Helen's disapproval.

Helen tossed her hair and turned to push open the unlocked door. 

"It's Christine isn't it?" Jenny said, as they walked down the corridor beyond. "There isn't any kind of suppressor field at all. It's just Christine."

Helen's eyes flickered back towards Jenny. "Took you long enough to figure it out."

"You could have said."

"And have you all rush around and reveal that we knew."

"You underestimate us," Jenny shot back.

"Oh really?"

"Ssh!" Jess whispered in agony. She and Helen had used this route several times. It was well away from most of the guard quarters, but even so a full blown argument was likely to attract attention.

They paused by a supply cupboard while Helen picked the lock and then slipped inside.

"A cleaning cupboard?" Jenny asked as they squeezed in among the mops and brooms.

"No one invited you along," Helen retorted.

"It's close enough," Jess explained as she closed her eyes and slipped into the computer systems.

The Space Wheel's computer system was isolated from the web back on Earth. Data was transmitted slowly back and forth by radio signals upon which Jess couldn't piggy back. So she was reliant on the information held in the Wheel's local databases. She began to attach a new message packet to the next scheduled transmission, another request for supplies to Helen's contacts back on Earth.

"OK, we're good for the list," she whispered once she had the framework in place.

Helen began reeling off the names of system components. Once she got to the end of the list Jenny added "make-up and chocolate."

Jess heard Helen hiss with annoyance but she couldn't help her own smile and she quickly tacked the request at the bottom.

"Really, those are your priorities when we could be working to get out of here, to improve our situation?" Helen carped.

"I thought the plan was to let the politics play out. Convince everyone we're harmless."

Helen snorted. "Hell will freeze over."

"Christine must be on our side," Jess interjected.

"Really?" asked Helen.

On a whim, Jess turned her attention to Christine's personal files. They were locked down with black ice and encryption, but even isolated as she had been from computational systems, Jess could feel her way through these.

She skated along the dark surfaces, twisting and turning to avoid the traps, the encryption unraveling in front of her.

"Jess?" queried a voice.

And she was in, diving into the sea of data that was Christine's personal files. She looked for correspondence with Nick, Lester, the Prime Minister, the US President and the Yelani ambassador. Then she spotted something else, a separate message folder using a different protocol. Jess pulled at the threads of it, like untangling a ball of wool, feeling her way through the strange encoding and then the contents unfolded in her mind.

She gasped and opened her eyes. Helen and Jenny were both staring at her in concern.

"Christine's in contact with another group of aliens!" she blurted out.

Helen clamped a hand over her mouth. "Back to the prisoner quarters," she whispered.

Jess felt Jenny's arm link with her own and they were hurrying back down the corridor, keeping a sharp eye out for the guards as they went.

* * *

They gathered in Helen's quarters for a council of war. There were surveillance cameras in all the public spaces, but Nick's pressure group had lobbied to leave the women some privacy. Jess's ability to pick up on integrated circuits and systems gave them reasonable confidence that there were no unofficial bugs in the rooms.

"Details!" Helen snapped pacing backwards and forwards.

"I didn't get a lot. It was a really strange message protocol. Alien I guess, but it's definitely more aliens, not the Yelani. I recognise Yelani message protocols."

"The Yelani have always said there are other races," mused Helen.

"They've implied they're protecting us from them," pointed out Claudia.

They all gave her a dubious look and she shrugged. Yelani politics was complicated, but most people assumed that their statements could not be taken at face value.

"So Christine is in contact with another race. Any idea why?" asked Jenny.

Jess shook her head and frowned. "The message talked about an operation that was to take place this evening, I think, though I didn't understand the time units. There were over-ride protocols attached to the message for the air-locks here, and the computer system."

Jess frowned to herself, trying to work out the details, then became aware that the room had fallen silent. "Oh!" she said as the penny dropped.

"If another race accesses the Space Wheel, then we will become their prisoners," said Emily.

"Or their slaves, or they'll just kill us as abominations," said Helen.

"It would solve a lot of Christine's problems if we were conveniently dead," said Jenny. "At the moment she has to spend most of her time up here. That doesn't leave her a lot of time to play politics back down on Earth. I'd been wondering for a while why she stuck with the prison governor job, but she probably had to. They might even have locked her in with us if she hadn't cooperated."

"On the other hand, if it wasn't for her involvement with us and the prison, she would still be little more than the VC of a British university," pointed out Claudia.

"Maybe she feels it is time to move onwards and upwards." Helen's lips curved into a predatory smile.

"We should warn Becker," said Jess.

"That really will get our privileges revoked," remarked Helen.

"Would he believe us?" Emily considered the proposition.

"Probably not. We need to come up with our own plan," said Jenny firmly.


	3. Networked Diictodons

Emily hesitated at the entrance to the common room. Jess was hunched over a small flat device that Helen had apparently smuggled onto the Space Wheel and then concealed in her quarters. Jess's eyes were fixed into the middle distance and they flickered backwards and forwards. Emily knew that she was somehow communicating with the machine. Emily found Jess as fascinating bundle of contradictions. In her journeys with the Time Tribe, Emily had gathered that in the future it would become customary for women to work as the equals of men but she had always imagined that they would somehow become more like men. Indeed she had, herself, cultivated a somewhat brusque and business-like manner, but Jess was as feminine and delicate as anything Emily could imagine and yet, at the same time, completely confident in her own abilities. Emily admired her, and liked her, and found herself almost unable to talk to her because she simply did not understand how to interact with such an amazing and exotic creature.

Jess blinked suddenly and then beamed at Emily. "I'm sorry, have you been there long?"

Emily shook her head and felt the heat of a blush in her cheeks. "No, I just got here. I didn't want to disturb you." 

Jess's smile was amazing. "You'd have to work pretty hard to disturb me once I'm in the file system, and to be honest, getting disturbed isn't a huge problem. I can just dive back in any time."

Emily smiled hesitantly back at her. One of the reasons it was so difficult to talk to Jess, was that Emily understood nothing of computers, and with the paranoia surrounding Jess's powers, she had no access to the things to learn. All of the other prisoners, with the exception of Helen, had attempted to explain the machines to her, but beyond grasping that they were incredibly flexible with a wide range of uses, she found it difficult to picture them properly.

"What were you doing? Can you explain it simply?" she asked anyway, sitting down next to Jess on the couch.

"I'm not sure I can exactly." Jess frowned. "I've had so little chance to use whatever this power is, though it does feel like an extension of what I used to do, you know, with my fingers." She waved her fingers in the air and Emily was momentarily distracted by the gesture. 

"I probably wouldn't understand anyway," Emily ducked her head and stared at her fingers.

"Oh! But this is a computer. I can actually show you at last!" Jess's voice was full of excitement and she picked up the flat device. "It's only an iPad, but I can still show you lots." Emily watched fascinated as Jess's fingers flicked across the screen.

"Do you have time?" Emily asked cautiously.

"Yes, this is all set. It'll stop me getting nervous while we wait."

Emily risked moving in closer as Jess began to pull strange pictures up on the device.

* * *

"Anything?" Claudia asked. 

Jenny was sitting by the observation window, staring out into space. She shook her head.

"Not a peep. I'm picking up you guys, but nothing else. Not that there's any guarantee I'd pick up on aliens."

Claudia sat on the floor next to Jenny, crossing her legs. For all they were very different, she found Jenny the most easy company of the women in the prison. Talking to her was disconcertingly like brain-storming a problem with herself - something she tried not to think about too hard.

"You could sense the Yelani, couldn't you?"

Jenny nodded. "That doesn't necessarily imply I could sense anything else though."

"Do you really think Helen's right? That Christine's trying to get us out of the way?"

Jenny chuckled. "I know we both think Christine is ruthless and ambitious and she doesn't have a lot of attachment to any of us. If Helen's guess is right... If it is Christine that supplies the suppression field..."

Then she sat upright, suddenly all alert.

"Incoming?" Claudia asked.

Jenny nodded. She placed a hand to her forehead, and closed her eyes. Claudia felt the strange tingle in her mind that meant Jenny was sending a communication. The single word `incoming' and a rough direction, opened up in her mind's eye. Instinctively she peered out of the observation window, looking for the tell-tale sign of a ship: the sun reflecting off metal. She quickly spotted the small moving dot.

"Let's get going." Jenny was already on her feet and they hurried towards the main entrance to the prisoner quarters.

The rest of the group were huddled together just around the corner from the door. Except for Helen, of course, who was attempting once more to fool the guard with shape-shifting.

"He's not buying it," Jenny whispered, sensing the man's scepticism even from this distance.

"She's tried this trick every time. I'm surprised they didn't clamp down on it sooner," Emily observed.

"We only got through earlier today because you helped," Jess murmured to Jenny

"Ryan's no fool. He'll know there shouldn't be any guards on this side of the door." Claudia pointed out and Jenny had to agree. She counted in her mind the number of times Helen had pulled this trick. It had worked twice, or at least it had been detected twice and their privileges revoked. 

At that moment a blaring siren filled the corridors.

"Damn! Lock-down!" muttered Claudia.

"Our guests have arrived," Jenny said.

They all hurried around the corner to join Helen who stood pouting next to the locked door. Ryan had already vanished, no doubt summoned to the station's air lock.

"It _was_ a long shot." Claudia's tone was sympathetic, attempting to reassure Helen. The look Helen shot her in return was venomous. Jenny suppressed the temptation to laugh though she was irritated that Helen had insisted on attempting the break out her way first. Now Ryan was gone, so was any chance of Jenny influencing him to let them out. Pointing all this out, however, probably wasn't going to help the situation.

Abby had bought the two diictodons with her as the back up plan and she now placed their cage on the floor next to the heavy metal door.

"And relying on those creatures _isn't_ a long shot?" Helen said disdainfully.

"You don't, apparently, have a better idea," Abby pointed out as she let the creatures out of the cage and chirruped gently at them.

Helen sniffed and leaned against the wall in a bored fashion.

* * *

Jess was wound as tight as a spring. She was dimly aware that she had been stressed since this whole surreal nightmare had begun, but the imminent prospect of actual aliens attempting to actually kill or kidnap them amped the whole thing up. She was standing with her shoulder pressed against Helen's but she didn't quite dare to take Helen's hand. 

Everyone was looking at her. Because their one chance rested on the diictodons managing to create a wireless network using Helen's iPad (strapped to Nancy's back) and a repeater (another of Helen's smuggled supplies) strapped to Sid's. The theory was that Sid would move the repeater in range of the Wheel's own wifi network and it would then boost the signal enough for Nancy's iPad to connect. As long as Nancy was close enough to Jess when this happened then Jess would be able to piggy back on the signal and get into the network.

"Anything?" Helen asked. Her impatience was evident.

Jess desperately shook her head, and reached out once more trying to pick up something, anything.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder. Emily was standing on her other side. "You'll sense it as soon as it's close enough. Don't worry so much," Emily said kindly.

"Of course she'll pick it up," Helen's tone sounded aggrieved. "It's Abby's pets I doubt."

Abby scowled at Helen but said nothing. It was at that moment that Jess felt the first hint of a signal at the back of her mind.

"I've got the signal!" she said excitedly.

"About time," grumbled Helen.

Abby's eyes flared. "You're dealing with two pre-historic creatures with limited intelligence. I think they've done remarkably well setting up a wifi relay network for you."

Helen snorted. "I'm _dealing_ with an unknown alien incursion. You assured me the diictodons were up to the job. Jess?"

"I'm already in," Jess said. The central computer control was a mere hop, skip and a jump from her now. There was a clanking sound and the lock-down door swung open.

* * *

Abby, Jenny and Claudia were tasked with getting to the main control centre and sending out a distress signal. Jenny and Claudia had argued hard that Jess should come with them to handle communications, but Helen had insisted Jess go with her and, with Jess acquiescing, there wasn't much they could do about it. Now the diictodons had done their job, Abby was feeling a bit like a third wheel, but she kept up with them, the two animals weaving around her feet.

They all had a rough idea of the layout of the Space Wheel, and were reasonably confident of the route, but even so the empty and silent corridors were disconcerting.

"Shouldn't we be able to hear something?" Abby whispered.

"Like what?" asked Claudia.

"I dunno, combat or something. I don't like this silence."

"Neither do I," said Jenny. 

Claudia checked her watch. "It's been 30 minutes since the aliens docked. Do you think they could overcome the guards in that time?"

"If they did, we're in a lot of trouble, but it certainly seems that way," muttered Jenny. Then she stopped walking and stood still and alert, as if listening to something.

Abby and Claudia paused. Abby watched as Jenny cast around and then focused on a door in the wall. She put a hand out and was clearly about to turn the handle when she stopped and pulled it back, as if burned. Then she carefully stepped away and indicated punching, in mime, to Claudia.

Claudia frowned for a moment and then shrugged. She paced round to the front of the door and then aimed a sharp kick at the lock. The door fell backwards and there was a muffled cry.

"Becker!" Abby gasped, recognising the voice instantly. 

"You could have warned us!" Claudia shot accusingly at Jenny, as she pulled the door away from the battered captain.

"He was ready to shoot anyone that came through. If he'd heard us talking..."

Abby snorted. "He wouldn't have shot us."

"Thanks for the confidence." Becker allowed Claudia to help him free of the wreckage. "What are you lot doing out of the prisoner section?"

"Well we weren't going to wait around for the alien invaders to kill us." Jenny sniffed and folded her arms across her chest.

Becker's eyebrows twitched. "Under the circumstances, fair enough."

"What are the circumstances?" Abby interrupted.

"Not good. Our communications were jammed before we were even aware of the ship's approach. They must have had inside information because they over-rode the air-locks and tossed in gas grenades of some kind. I lost at least half the men in that initial incursion. Since then it's been a running battle but impossible to coordinate with comms down. I left Rendall trying to fix the comms, but I've not found anyone up and about since I headed out for a recce. They've locked down most of our systems somehow."

Claudia nodded. "We were heading for comms as well. Helen has taken Jess to the enemy ship. They're hoping to disable whatever is jamming the system."

"Incoming!" Jenny hissed, flattening herself against the wall of the corridor. 

Becker instantly dropped to one knee, his gun raised to his shoulder. Abby flattened herself against the wall with Jenny, much good that it would do them. The two diictodons picked up on her fear and she crouched low urging them to stay quiet and safe.

Claudia broke into a run.

"There's three of them! Just around the corner!" Jenny snapped out. 

Abby looked up, curious to see what these new aliens were like. The creatures that appeared were short and squat unlike the Yelani, which were tall and graceful in a weird kind of way. _Heavier gravity_ Abby's mind supplied helpfully. Their skins were a sickly pale grey colour and they had wide mouths and disconcertingly flattened heads.

Claudia hit the first alien. It flew backwards into the wall under the force of the blow. Becker fired at the second. It staggered but didn't fall, but then Claudia hit it as well and it collapsed to the ground. The third had the time to raise some kind of gun, but Becker's next shot actually knocked the thing from its hands. Claudia clasped her hands together and clubbed it.

"That was effective," Becker said, rising to his feet.

"Certainly better than that gun of yours!" Claudia pointed out.

"This is a low security prison. We're not actually supposed to be able to kill you, you know!" Becker pointed out.

Abby couldn't help snorting. "Low security, right! That's why we're in orbit around Jupiter with no actual escape ships."

"You're an unusual case," Becker replied.

* * *

Jess and Helen were crouched in an alcove while Emily dealt with a small squad of the alien creatures. Jess was resisting the temptation to peek out and watch Emily fight, much as she was continually entranced by the graceful way the other woman moved. Jess glanced anxiously at Helen, but her lover was looking at her iPad a slight frown creasing her brows. Jess suppressed the feeling that she was more an irritation to Helen than anything else. It had been growing on her for some time, but she told herself that it was just the fact of being prisoners and the way the other women so clearly didn't like Helen. Jess reached out a hand and squeezed Helen's arm. Helen looked up and frowned in a puzzled way at her and then looked back at the iPad.

"It's safe to come out now!"

Emily's voice rang down the corridor. Jess popped her head around the corner and was impressed to see Emily, surrounded by about four prone alien bodies.

"Good job you're with us?" Jess said admiringly.

"Please can we get over the excitement at Emily's fighting skills." Helen's voice, in contrast dripped with sarcasm.

Jess winced inwardly. She knew that Helen was self-sufficient and disliked relaying on other people, but sometimes she wished the older woman could be a bit less abrasive, especially to those Jess considered her friends.

Emily smiled gently at Jess. "Nearly there."

The airlock door lay on the floor of the corridor around the next corner. It must have been blown inwards by some explosion. It looked like the invaders had come through fighting. The bodies of the prison guards, all of whom Jess recognised, lay strewn across the floor. Two of the aliens had been left to stand guard at the airlock. Emily launched into a run the moment she saw them.

Jess clapped a hand to her mouth, horrified by the dead bodies but also anxious not to give Emily away. The aliens turned at the sound of Emily's feet, but by then it was already too late. She ran up the side of one wall, jumped across to the wall opposite and landed between the two guards, a roundhouse kick taking both out at once.

"That was amazing!" Jess said.

"Efficient, I'll give it that," Helen grudgingly conceded.

Jess knelt down by the nearest body. Tom Ryan, she recalled, had a boyfriend back on Earth. He'd once shown her a picture of a ridiculously handsome young man with high cheekbones and long eyelashes. She felt at his neck wondering if she could tell if there was a pulse. 

"This one's alive," Emily reported just as Jess managed to locate a steady thumping sensation with her fingers.

"If we've quite finished worrying about the people who've kept us locked up for the past six months," Helen said.

Jess stood up and approached the airlock cautiously.

"Can you sense their system?" Helen asked.

Jess nodded. It was strange, but still clearly worked on the logic of binary signals. It might slow her up a little, but she could deduce function from the signals. Helen pressed her iPad into Jess's hands.

"Jess I need you to download operating instructions and, if possible, the alien's orders, into this, in a form where I can read it."

Jess took the device in her hands and interfaced with the operating system, soothed by the familiarity. Then she felt her way into the alien machine. She sensed Helen's hands guiding her into the airlock, away from prying eyes. She was dimly aware of the sounds of more fighting. There must have been aliens inside the ship. Emily was, presumably, taking care of them.

She crouched low over the iPad struggling to translate the information between the two systems. Her senses overwhelmed with the rush of data.

"Is this safe?" she vaguely heard Emily say.

"It's the quickest way to find out how to fly this machine."

"That doesn't actually mean it's safe for Jess."

"You're being paranoid. The risks are minimal, I'm sure, and do you really propose to remain here once this situation is cleared up? The prison is currently in disarray. We've got a ship. We can escape. Go anywhere. Somewhere out there, beyond the Yelani barricade, there's a whole political structure of aliens. We can find protectors. Find a place. Explore."

There was a note of wistfulness in Helen's voice.

"Well, first things first," said Emily briskly. "Jess, are you with us?"

Jess took a deep breath and managed to raise her head, focusing on Emily who was crouched in front of her, holding onto her wrists. Jess nodded weakly, releasing her grip on the iPad. They were in some kind of cockpit, two low chairs were placed before a large console full of flashing lights, levers and buttons. Jess ran her hands over it, feeling her way into the systems.

"I've got tracking. I think most of them are searching for us in the prisoner quarters though they seem to be on the way back now!" she reported.

"That makes sense. This guy probably triggered an alarm." There was an alien prone on the floor. Emily stirred it with her foot.

In Jess's minds eye the two networks - the alien and the human were like a pair of intertwined threads. She sensed the Space Wheel's internal comms network and could almost feel someone desperately trying to over-ride the locks that the aliens had placed in the system. She could see the layout of the prison station and combining the two streams of data she knew where every human and alien with a comms device was located. 

"I think I can coordinate this," Jess muttered.

"In what way?" Emily asked.

"Becker! Can you hear me?" Jess patched into what she hoped was Becker's headset.

"Oh great! Now I have a prisoner in the comms system." Becker didn't sound too annoyed.

Jess smiled to herself. "I'm going to attempt to upload the location of the remaining aliens to your tablet. Are you getting it?"

"Yes, I see them."

"I'm changing the security over-rides on the internal systems. That should block any codes they've got from Christine. Then I'll shut them into the prisoner block. Most of them are still in there."

"No doubt looking for us," Emily murmured.

"Where am I supposed to put you lot, if I've got aliens in the prisoner quarters?" Becker sounded amused.

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Jess felt her mouth curling up into a smile.

* * *

Less than an hour later everything was under control, more or less at any rate. The erstwhile guards formed a sullen group at one side of the main common room. The prisoners had occupied the other side and only Becker and Emily in any way attempted to cross the divide.

The aliens were locked up in the prison section and communications had been restored with Earth.

Becker and Emily were negotiating something or other. As Jess watched, Claudia reluctantly peeled herself away from the wall and walked over to them. Claudia was, Jess reflected, the obvious peace-maker from among the prisoners.

There was a pull on her arm and Jess looked up to see Helen standing over her. A quick gesture from Helen's head indicated she was to come with her. Puzzled, Jess stood up and allowed herself to be pulled towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Mac Rendall asked.

Helen's smile was positively evil. "I need to scratch an itch. Do you want to watch?" her arm sneaked around Jess's waist and pulled her close.

Rendall blushed furiously, a colour Jess suspected, matched her own, and stepped out of their way.

"Helen," Jess hissed. "We're sharing a room with Claudia and Jenny!"

She glanced back in the guards' common room. Emily met her eyes but everyone else seemed oblivious to what was going on.

"We're not going to the room," Helen remarked, steering Jess rapidly down the corridor.

"We're not?"

"No we're going to take that alien ship and make a break for it."

"But, what about the others?" Jess hesitated.

"We missed our chance to get us all out of here when we started helping Becker. If we involve the others now, there will be a big discussion, Becker will find out about it and then he'll lock us up again and post a guard on the ship."

"Well, maybe," Jess could see the logic in Helen's words.

"Definitely," Helen said firmly, still marching rapidly down the corridor.

Jess followed her, misgivings growing with every step. "I don't know about this. Jenny and Claudia think helping with the aliens will move our case forward."

Helen just snorted.

"Don't you think stealing the ship and running away will just make everyone believe everything that was said about us?"

"Jess!" Helen snapped. "You are never going to be able to convince people we're safe to be around because we are not safe to be around. There will never be an understanding, or an acceptance, it doesn't matter how much you make nice. I, for one, am not prepared to sit around wasting my life waiting for moonshine and pixie dust."

"I'm not coming," Jess decided on the very threshold of the ship. "We can't just abandon the others." She could feel her breaths coming short and sharp almost in a panic. 

"Jess, trust me." Helen's face softened into a smile.

Jess tried to answer it with one of her own, but she had a sick feeling in her stomach and her heart was pounding in her chest. Everything about this _felt_ wrong. In particular, the thought of abandoning her friends: Abby who had helped her all those long nights in the labs before all this had happened; Claudia Lewis who had tried to support her and keep her going, and then Claudia and Jenny who had been so strong and cheerful even as they grappled with their own situation; and, of course, Emily, who, despite being so skilled and clever had treated Jess with a kind of wary respect that made her feel strong and competent. She really didn't feel she could just abandon any of them. She wasn't sure she was ready to just throw in the fight either, to accept that she would always be a criminal in the eyes of the human race.

Jess realised she was shaking her head in mute defiance.

Helen's face hardened. "I'm not staying."

"Not even for me?" Jess could hear the quiver in her voice.

"Seriously Jess, if you want us to stay together then you need to come with me."

Jess shook her head again, feeling the tears starting in her eyes.

"Fair enough," Helen just shrugged and stepped into the ship. She pressed something and the door started to close.

"Do you even know how to fly that thing?" Jess asked.

Helen waved her contraband iPad at Jess. "You downloaded and translated the manual remember. I've already worked out enough of the basics to get me out of reach of the Yelani and Earth forces."

"Helen!" Jess called, but Helen had already vanished deeper into the ship.

Jess closed her eyes, took a deep breath and began to feel her way into the computer systems.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," said a gentle voice.

She opened her eyes to find Emily standing next to her, a sympathetic smile on her face.

"What?"

"You're going to attempt to stop her, aren't you? It won't achieve anything. She'll hate you for it, and she might do something dangerous to circumvent it."

Jess felt the tears running down her cheeks. The alien ship's engines fired. "I didn't think she would really leave me."

Emily put an arm around Jess. "I think your relationship was always a little one-sided. I had hoped I was wrong."

"We'll get into trouble if she goes," Jess whispered.

Emily squeezed her shoulders. "No more trouble than we're already in for breaking out of the prisoner section. Jess, if she cares for you, I'm sure she'll come back somehow."

Jess began to cry in earnest. The horrible realisation unfolding inside her that Helen would never come back. "She won't come back for me," Jess sobbed. "She's just not like that. I've let her down."

Emily pulled Jess into her arms. "She's ruthless and determined, we both know that. I don't know if you've let her down, but you haven't let the rest of us down. It was very brave of you to stay with us. Really you can't blame yourself for something that was Helen's decision."

Jess buried her head in Emily's shoulder. She tried to say something about how Helen was different but it came out as a muffled tangle of words. Emily just held her tight.

She heard to the sound of the ship's engines fade into silence as it broke away from the airlock and into the vacuum. She turned her head so she could peer out of the view-port and see it vanish into the blackness of space.

Helen had her freedom now. Jess only hoped that the rest of them would somehow get theirs.


End file.
